$450 dollars for being knocked through a plate glass window? Man, those claimants are ridiculous…

Last year, I was walking down the street when a police car jumped the curb and hit a garbage can. This receptacle flew through the air, striking myself and three others, knocking us all through a plate-glass window of a downtown ice cream shop. Well, of course all four of us sued the city. The cop was texting at the time and not paying attention to the road and we all felt entitled to certain damages. I felt the payment of medical bills and lost work time was reasonable for a total of $11,000 dollars. My friend Davis asked for twelve (he makes more than I do). The other two people, one was unemployed and just asked for seven to cover his medical bills while his buddy, well…he asked for $93,000 dollars.

No, not sure why.

In any case, the city gave us each $450.00 dollars and told us if we didn’t like it, we could appeal it to City Hall. We all did. We were all denied. So, I got pissed and called the local news to explain my plight, and a certain Dan Rather went to the Chief of Police…

The important part begins at 1 minute, 39 seconds…

Dan Rather:

“Some say they’ve only received a small fraction of what they are owed, without any explanation, does that happen?”

Ken Feinberg:

“I don’t think that’s happened very often. I think its very common, that people receive a fraction of what they ask for. You’ve got to understand, that one claimant filed a claim and asked for all 20 billion….another claimant, he asked for ten billion.”

So there you go…those two claimants screwed it up for everybody. If it weren’t for those two claimants, everybody else would have been paid more fairly…that is, if it weren’t for bad documentation, documentation, documentation!

Yes, an exaggeration, but I do find it rather disingenuous in this interview for Feinberg to:

1. Still claim he is independent of BP, and then use as his rationale that BP not only pays him, but pays the GCCF (duh, his staff) and also, BP pays the claimants themselves…thus somehow equating all three of their positions. Interesting, but if they are all equal in the eyes of British Petroleum, it would seem only proper a whole lot of claimants deserve a nice raise.

2. Feinberg is sure people only receiving a fraction of what they are owed hasn’t happened “very often.” One might argue if it has happened once, its way too many times.

3. Most importantly, Feinberg marginalized the thousands of people who say they’ve been financially screwed in this claims process by dismissively equating them with two yahoos who asked for such ridiculous amounts, thus implying those thousands of other claimants are being foolish, because as he goes on to say…they may feel they deserve more, but can’t prove it.

Well, I guess that’s why were having that audit then, huh?

On a side note…Mr. Rather? Its plain to see why you are no longer on the networks, you know, because the people you’ve been interviewing must have complained rather harshly to your network bosses about your tough, follow up…er, questions?

Good article, discusses the tale of Robert Campo, an oyster fisher who a year after the spill, received less than one-third of what he asked for and Kenny never told him why…probably because he asked for 3 billion dollars. Also there’s a Mr. George Barisich who showed tax documents and other receipts showing he lost $200,000 but the GCCF only offered him $25,000. Perhaps he is one of those exceptions Ken previously mentioned.

“It’s not perfect. People will complain,” Feinberg says. “But I think the program has worked as intended.”

Yeah, this writer is pretty sure of it too…stalled claims, short claims, dismissed claims…yeah, the claims process has worked just as intended.

Also of late, claimants would like a “Special Master” to oversee the oil spill fund, and have filed legal papers requesting such because…

There are 407,754 individuals and 103,424 business that have filed claims against BP claimants. Of these combined 511,178, more than a third were settled by way of the BP “quick pay” program. The program gave them a flat $5,000 check (or $25,000 in the case of businesses) in exchange for their signature on release waiving their right to file future claims against BP and all the other defendants involved with the spill. “It was kind of like a pressure signing. If you’re hungry and someone offers you something to eat, it’s hard to say no,” a quick pay recipient and Alabama seafood business owner was quoted as saying in the brief.

Those pesky interim claims, the ones where people receive damages and retain their rights to sue BP. Those claims seem to be getting stalled much more than the claims where people are required to waive their rights. Ken’s probably sure he’ll turn around one of these days and find like, hundred of people who put in requests for $10 billion dollars and that would just be a waste of time, so get it over with already…go for the final, sign the form!

But more important than any of this stuff:

So the guy who sued the city for $93,000 dollars?

Yeah, that’s why the rest of us all got screwed in our claims process.

That’s why I only got like 10% of what I lost. Well…that’s what I have to think because when I asked to see the documents, get some kind of explanation as to why the city’s offer was so low, at first nobody would return my call, then about a month later when they did, the person on the phone told me he didn’t know why and I had to call this other guy who works for the county. Two months after that I finally got that guy on the phone, but he says they lost all my documentation: the missed work hours signed by my boss and the medical bills.

I had to start all over again, and I finally got everything to them – again – last week…and just yesterday, I get a call from somebody at an investigative agency who says he wants to meet me, and he wants me to be able to prove I am who I am. He also suggested I not muddy the waters by bringing a lawyer…

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Kurt Vonnegut says:

Still and all, why bother? Here's my answer. Many people need desperately to receive this message: I feel and think much as you do, care about many things you care about, although most people do not care about them.
You are not alone.

William Burroughs says:

The people in power will not disappear voluntarily, giving flowers to the cops just isn't going to work. This thinking is fostered by the establishment; they like nothing better than love and nonviolence. The only way I like to see cops given flowers is in a flowerpot from a high window.

Marshall McLuhan says:

An administrator in a bureaucratic world is a man who can feel big by merging his non-entity in an abstraction. A real person in touch with real things inspires terror in him.

Charles Bukowski says:

There was something about New Orleans, though it didn't let me feel guilty that I had no feeling for the things so many others needed. It let me alone...

Henry Miller says:

The city is loveliest when the sweet death racket begins. Her own life lived in defiance of nature, her electricity, her frigidaires, her soundproof walls, the glint of lacquered nails, the plumes that wave across the corrugated sky. Here in the coffin depths grow the everlasting flowers sent by telegraph...

E.M. Forster says:

A facade of skyscrapers facing a lake and behind the facade, every type of dubiousness.